Before the big magnitude 9.0 earthquake happened in Japan on 11 March, there was a quite big one that occurred on 9 March that scaled at magnitude 7.2. Considering all the events that turned up from 9 March till today (17 days time), this ranked as the worse event of the year.
Normally, we only heard about earthquake, and at most with tsunami coming in after that. But this time in Japan, particularly Sendai and Fukushima area, they had 2 big earthquakes, followed by tsunami, knocked-out nuclear plant, radioactive exposure, regulated electricity supply, limited clean food and water supply, and cold weather. Translated into human form, it means getting cold, fever, cough, measles, sore throat, back ache, and stomach ache one after another. Until today, the fear on radioactive exposure is still present and no one can answer when the problem will be solved.
My wife was one of them who got to experience the earthquake, though not during the first tremor. She had seen how cars can swerve on the road, how chaotic the traffic was after the earthquake, how inconvenient not to have phone to use, how scary to feel 16 times of tremor at 8th floor of the hostel, and how discipline, organized and calm the Japanese responded and reacted after the earthquake.
She was considered lucky because when the main tremor started, she was far away on the south western side of Tokyo. She and her group of colleagues reached the hostel in Tokyo safely and managed to miss the heavy traffic jam and road blocks that happened soon after. They eventually got out of Tokyo via Narita airport after stranded for 2 days. After she got back, more bad news about the explosion and nuclear radiation leakage came out and affecting the livelihood of the Japanese. It was also fortunate that her overseas course was planned for 2 weeks, and the disasters happened on the last few days. Imagine if they had another week to complete the course, and all they can do is to stay indoor with limited electricity, risk of another earthquake, further exposure to the radiation and potentially dangerous food supply.
